isprs archives XLII 4 W1 325 2016

The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLII-4/W1, 2016
International Conference on Geomatic and Geospatial Technology (GGT) 2016, 3–5 October 2016, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

DESIGN OF 3D TOPOLOGICAL DATA STRUCTURE FOR 3D CADASTRE OBJECTS
Nur Amalina Zulkifli*, Alias Abdul Rahman and Muhammad Imzan Hassan

Department of Geoinformation, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM
Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia - (amalina.jc@gmail.com, alias@utm.my and imzan@utm.my)

KEYWORDS: 3D topology, data structure, TEN, 3D cadastre, modelling

ABSTRACT:
This paper describes the design of 3D modelling and topological data structure for cadastre objects based on Land Administration
Domain Model (LADM) specifications. Tetrahedral Network (TEN) is selected as a 3D topological data structure for this project.
Data modelling is based on the LADM standard and it is used five classes (i.e. point, boundary face string, boundary face,
tetrahedron and spatial unit). This research aims to enhance the current cadastral system by incorporating 3D topology model based
on LADM standard.

1. INTRODUCTION

below land parcel, as well as all constructions that are

permanently fixed to the land.

Traditionally, cadastral registrations consisted of a set of
cadastral maps containing cadastral land parcels with unique
parcel numbers and a paper archive in which property
information on land parcels was maintained. Cadastral
modelling should based on international standard specifications
(i.e. ISO 19152 – LADM). The Land Administration Domain
Model (LADM) is not to replace the existing system but rather
to provide a formal language. According to Lemmen (2012), the
reason behind LADM is to reuse the collective knowledge of
many countries in land administration and to have clear
definitions of the key concepts.

Pressure on land in urban areas has led to overlapping
constructions. Describing the overlapping property rights in the
cadastral registration pose a challenge. The challenge is how to
register overlapping constructions in cadastral registration that
registers information on 2D land parcels. Therefore, the
cadastral registration should be extended into the third

dimension. The basic needs for a 3D cadastre are to have a
complete registration of 3D rights and to have good
accessibility to the legal status of stratified property including
3D spatial information as well as to public law restrictions.

Cadastre has played a huge role in the development of our
society since it aims at registering legal status and property
rights associated with land. Cadastre is usually based on a 2D
parcel description with associated land information. A number
of countries have considered the adoption of the LADM to their
local needs, especially in cadastral applications. For example,
documentation in ISO 19152 (2012) including country profiles
for Portugal, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Hungary, the
Netherlands, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea.
Elia et al., (2013) investigated the adaptation of LADM in the
Cyprus Land Information System (CLIS) with the aim of
improving its data model. In Portugal, an object-oriented
conceptual model based on LADM has been developed for the
Portuguese Cadastre and the Portuguese Real Estate Register
(Hespanha et al., 2008). Pouliot et al., (2013) used the LADM

in comparative case study between condominium and coownership in Quebec (in Canada) and Alsace Moselle (in
France). Most of the literature only propose the conceptual
model for their country and rarely involve with implementation
stage in order to validate the model.
Cadastral registrations throughout the world are based on the
principle that a land parcel is the basic registration entity for
cadastral registration. This principle of cadastral registration
follows the juridical definition of ownership of land, which says
that ownership of land is defined by boundaries on the surface
and is not explicitly limited in the vertical dimension. In
general, the ownership of land includes all space above and

2D cadastral systems of most countries have been established
and applied in years. To completely replace current 2D cadastral
system by 3D cadastral system is cost expensive for the
government. And constructing a full 3D cadastral database is an
abandon of current cadastral data. It is important to utilize
current cadastral data in 3D cadastre developments (Aien et al.,
2011). The ISO 19152 (LADM) has been designed to allow
parcel and boundary for 2D and 3D to be integrated together

(Lemmen et al., 2010). However, to construct the 3D cadastral
system and database based on current systems and data in
practice is key issue need to be explored. Constructing of 3D
data models and their topological relations are two important
parts of 3D cadastral and its should based on international
standard specifications (LADM – ISO 19152).
The use of topology in the cadastral application can be grouped
into two areas. The first is to support spatial analysis. This
includes the connectivity between cadastral objects for
neighbourhood analysis. The second use of topology is to
support the development of the database. It can be used to
discover structural problem with the database feature. For
example, polygons that are not closed or overlapping between
the cadastral objects. It can also be used to automate feature
creation and ensure feature integration. The research on 3D
topology in cadastre applications deserves further exploration
for a better cadastral system in the future. Any implementation
of topology for 3D cadastral should take into account the
requirements of the LADM standard model, to support the
visualization to be built in conjunction with the 3D topology.


This contribution has been peer-reviewed.
doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W1-325-2016

325

The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLII-4/W1, 2016
International Conference on Geomatic and Geospatial Technology (GGT) 2016, 3–5 October 2016, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the
needs and design of 3D topology data structure (i.e. TEN) based
on LADM. Conclusion and future work are given in Section 3.

2. THE NEEDS AND DESIGN OF 3D TOPOLOGICAL
DATA STRUCTURE
Nowadays, 3D spatial analysis is widely used in most
applications include urban planning, preservation of historical
sites and buildings, and even complex procedures in disaster
management. Soon, users will move towards more complex
spatial queries than existing 2D/3D queries. It is impractical for

3D spatial analysis if the processing spatial 3D objects without
their topological relationships. To optimize storage of the
information relating to the 3D geometric topology objects, a
suitable structure is needed since 3D applications are
increasingly used. A new data structure with topology seems
useful for the application of 3D cadastre, where the topological
issues are crucial.
Topological structures are generally used to represent planar or
space partitions without redundancy. In planar partitions (i.e.
2D topological structures) and space partitions (i.e. 3D
topological structures), spatial objects are defined on the basis
of non-overlapping objects. A large number of 2D topological
structures are already available in the literature. Many 3D
topological structures are also reported but only a few of them
have been tested for large data sets. A topological structure has
many advantages in cadastral application:

It avoids redundant storage

It is easier to maintain the consistency of the data after

editing

It is more efficient during the visualization because
less data have to be read from disk

It is the natural data model for certain applications;
e.g. during surveying, an edge is collected together
with attributes to a boundary

It is more efficient for certain query operations (e.g.
find neighbors)

but the orientation is now related to the volume the face is
bounded to. Each face has two orientations including negative
and positive and an edge could be within the boundary of more
than 2 faces. The real 3D volumetric or solid objects should be
constructed first with the input faces based on the standard
model and storing the reference in the 3D topological model
(refer Figure 1).


Figure 1. Correct topological relation (left) and incorrect topological
relation (right) (after Zhao et al., 2012)

The identification of topological relations needs a topological
data structure as the basis. Based on the reviews of the 3D
topological data structures, the most suitable 3D topology data
structure is a topological approach based on a tetrahedral
network (TEN), proposed by (Penninga and van Oosterom,
2008). The TEN was selected as a structure due to its favourable
characteristics from a computational point of view (i.e. only
have four points). All elements of the tetrahedral network
consist of flat faces, convex and they are all well defined
because the three points of each triangle always lie in the same
plane. In this paper, the topological data structure is based on
TEN data structure. The data structure has been improved to fit
the LADM standard specifications.

1

SpatialUnit


1
Tetrahedron

2D topological data structures are well established. However,
research works on 2D topology based on LADM standard are
very few. A number of 2D topological data structures have been
introduced to design 2D topology model. Example of such data
structures are Wing Edge, POLYVRT, Topologically Integrated
Geographic Encoding and Referencing – TIGER, Triangular
Irregular Network –TIN and Geographic Base File/Dual
Independent Map Encoding – GBF/DIME. Most of the 2D
topological structures are based on the planar graph theory. A
planar graph can be represented on a plane with nodes at each
intersection between edges. Each given oriented edge has one
face on the right, and one face on the left (De la Lossa and
Cervella, 1999).
Several types of 3D topological structures (i.e. Tetrahedral
Network (TEN), 3D Formal Data Structure (3D FDS),
Simplified Data Schema (SSS) and Radius Topology) have

been introduced. 2D topology is well investigated while the
research on 3D topology between volumetric geometries is still
indistinct. Furthermore, the topology of 3D spatial objects is
more difficult to analyze than 2D topology due to the
complexity of 3D geometry. There are even more complex
relationships exist between the primitives in 3D. In addition, the
orientation is more difficult. The orientation of an outer ring of
a face cannot simply be defined as counterclockwise anymore,

3

BoundaryFace

BoundaryFaceString

1..*
1

4


Point

1..*

2..*

Figure 2. Conceptual model of TEN data structure based on LADM

The basic elements in a topological structure are nodes, edges
and faces. A node is represented by a point. Every node has a
coordinate pair associated with it to describe the location of the
node. An edge is bounded by a start node and an end node and
has a coordinate string describing the geometric representation.
Each edge can consist of multiple vertices, represented by linear
strings. As each edge is directed, it is possible to determine
which faces are located on the left and right-hand side of the
edge. A face corresponds to a polygon that can be reconstructed
from several edge strings and has references to a directed edge
on its outer and inner boundaries if any.
There are four elements are used in TEN data structure (i.e
node, edge, face and tetrahedron). In LADM, the terms use for
node, edge and face are different. According to LADM

This contribution has been peer-reviewed.
doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W1-325-2016

326

The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLII-4/W1, 2016
International Conference on Geomatic and Geospatial Technology (GGT) 2016, 3–5 October 2016, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

standard, nodes are stored in Point class, edges are stored in
Boundary Face String class and faces are stored in Boundary
Face class (refer Figure 2). The point is defined as 0demensional geometric primitive for position representation.
Boundary Face String is a boundary forming part of the outside
of a spatial unit. Meanwhile, a face that used in the
representation of a boundary of a spatial unit is called Boundary
Face. The spatial unit is a single area of land.

Zhao, Z., Guo, R., Li, L. And Ying S. (2012). Topological
Relationship Identification in 3D Cadastre. In proceedings of
the 3rd International Workshop on 3D Cadastres, 25-26 October
2012, Shenzhen, China, pp.345-360.

3. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
This paper shows the 3D modelling for cadastral application
and some initial result of 3D topological data structure (i.e.
TEN) based on LADM. Further investigation on this research is
needed to come out with a complete 3D topological situation for
3D cadastral application. Nowadays, 2D cadastre is not capable
of modeling the complex urban land use including underground
structures and multi-storey building. The 2D land parcels cannot
accommodate the increasing number of non-parcel interests.
Many other problems for example overlapping and gap are also
associated with the 2D cadastral model. To solve all these
problems, a full 3D cadastral model based on LADM with a
topology is needed to ensure that no overlaps or gaps in spaces.

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This contribution has been peer-reviewed.
doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-4-W1-325-2016

327